Why no one’s checking in at this five-star hotel

And going by the present, there won’t be much to discuss. This year, its occupancy has been an average of 30%, up from last year’s 14 but way below the 70% industry average—other hotels in Delhi are sold out till February next year.

A visit to the hotel shows you what lies beneath. Oldtime employees recall the Dalai Lama as being their most favoured guest. That was when its atrium, the first of its kind when it was built in 1982, swarmed with police and sniffer dogs. The Dalai Lama has since shifted to a hotel just down the road.

The lobby, designed by Kothari and Associates, which could hold up to 300 people at a time is empty—its only occupants the hotel employees and sometimes transit passengers whose flights have been delayed or postponed.

Chefair Delhi, part of the Centaur’s operations and equipped to supply 8,000 meals a day to airline companies, now operates on a 20% capacity supplying mainly to Alliance Air.

Centaur was constructed in 1982 as a business-cum-leisure hotel but has since then seen no major renovation. Around 94 rooms were renovated in 2000 in the hope that its own sister concern’s employees from Air India would use the hotel for their stay in Delhi. But as a Cabinet minister commented at a meeting, the crew unions refused to stay ‘‘because even the flushes in the toilets don’t work, forget room service and other amenities.’’

A far cry from the many firsts that hotel boasted of. Its glass elevators are now empty. Manager, sales and marketing, Rajesh Chauhan gets nostalgic saying that these elevators were the first to be introduced in Delhi. ‘‘This glass elevator was where Kajol shot a scene in her first film,’’ recalls a hotel employee.

Another first for Delhi, he says, was the lobby which has no pillars. ‘‘This was the first time that this sort of architecture was used in a five-star hotel,’’ Chauhan says.

The hotel has recently given VRS to 306 employees with another 150 expected to retire by 2004-end. Built on 45,000 sq metres of land leased from the Airports Authority of India, it still has some unutilised area which could be built up later as the lease terms offer adequate flexibility to potential buyers to develop the land for alternate use.

The shopping arcade of the hotel gathers dust and seven of the eight shops have been closed for quite sometime now. The only shop that’s open, Paridhan, has its owner Santosh Kumar spending time sifting through silk shirts and ties. ‘‘There were shops that sold Kashmiri handicraft, leather goods, jewellery and there was a ladies’ boutique. They all closed shop. There are no customers,’’ he says.

Rasoi, an Indian food restaurant, is still open. ‘‘There used to be a long line of people waiting to get in. This was the only restaurant here which had its own kitchen and tandoor so that the customer could see what he was eating. Now, that kitchen is closed and the food comes from the main kitchen,’’ an employee says.

A hotel official says that Centaur also boasts of a mini golf course and a swimming pool. The poolside however, is now used for the odd wedding party. Farther down, the children’s playground is deserted, the swings and the slide rusted, the paint peeled. ‘‘Now of course, the management thinks that there is no point in painting these swings. After all, the hotel will be sold,’’ an employee says.